BOTTOM LINE: SAFE ZONE(S) IN IRAQ NEEDED
ASAP. Ordinary
people left the Nineveh Plain region. Assyrians
fled as refugees (Jordan, Turkey, Iran, et al)
and as displaced people relocated in Iraq
(mostly in Kurdistan). The decision makers from
all international, regional and local political
spectrums did not take correct measures to
protect and defend the ordinary people,
especially the Iraq minorities.
The Urgent Need For Appropriate “Safe Zones” In
Iraq
https://providencemag.com/2017/06/the-urgent-need-for-appropriate-safe-zones-in-iraq/
Baroness Caroline Cox and Ewelina
U. Ochab |
June 15, 2017
“Most people fled the Nineveh Plains in
mid-2014, just hours before Daesh (ISIS) arrived
in their villages and towns. Buildings were
destroyed; properties, shops, medical centers,
and churches were all looted. Today, months
after the areas have been taken back from Daesh
(ISIS), many people are still not returning…”
“Many people who fled Daesh (ISIS) want to
return to their homes in the Nineveh Plains.
They also have a right to do so because the
right to return is protected under the Iraqi
Constitution (and international law). However,
the right to return means nothing if that right
is not adequately respected and protected.
People will have to return to the rubble left
after Daesh (ISIS). Moreover, they cannot return
if there is no protection from Daesh (ISIS) or
any other terrorist groups that may come after
them…”
“The proposal to develop safe zones to protect
minorities from the Daesh (ISIS) atrocities is
commendable as religious minorities in Iraq were
specifically targeted for destruction by Daesh
(ISIS). They now require urgent assistance,
including security. Without security, any
assistance will not be sustainable—as it may
only be a matter of time before another
extremist group will target post-conflict
vulnerable communities.”
SECURING NORTHERN IRAQ – NINEVEH PLAINS REGION –
SAFE ZONES
CLEARING OUT REMNANTS OF ISIS/DAESH IN NINEVEH
PLAINS
- ESTABLISHING SAFE ZONES -
- ROBUST RULES OF ENGAGEMENT FOR SECURITY -
- TRANSITION TO VILLAGES, TOWNS & RURAL AREAS -
A strong and united Iraq which quickly moves to
implement a cohesive CRISIS READINESS – CRISIS
PREPAREDNESS PROGRAM with a SAFE ZONE(S) (for
transition [holding] area) signals to the U.N.
Security Council and world leaders that Iraq
Officials are initiating a sound and practical
National Security framework to stop terrorism
which the international community can
immediately support. It further demonstrates
Iraq leaders will work
to
effectively deal with the ever-present dangers
existing with ISIS’ Jihad terrorists who are being
defeated in Mosul and the Nineveh Plains Region as
Iraqi forces dismantle the Iraq’s Caliphate State.
SAFE ZONES = INTEGRATED 24/7 HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS
MUST BE FORTHCOMING
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/countryregion/iraq?source=ADD170U0U01&utm_source=AdWords&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=GooglePaid&utm_content=nonbrand&gclid=CLL5oN7H1tQCFUuAaQodvccKhg
ASSYRIAN CHRISTIANS LIVING IN WORN TORN LIMBO,
PRAYING AGAINST GENOCIDE
The Federalist September
28, 2016 by Alexandria Hudson
“Amman, Jordan — On June 10, 2014, Batool* was in
her classroom in Mosul, Iraq, preparing for the
school week when she received word: Bad
people—barbarians looking for Christians to
kill—were coming…Batool immediately went home to
pack up her life…- she was midway through a PhD in
biology—she knew she was likely saying a permanent
farewell to the only home she had ever known.”
“That night, her house was marked with an “N” for
“Nazarene” (ن in
Arabic), signifying that she follows Jesus of
Nazareth. It’s not dissimilar from the Star of David
Jews were obligated to wear in 1930s Germany. The
next day, ISIS sent Batool’s sister a threatening
note telling her convert to Islam, pay the “jizya”—a
tax on non-Muslims— or be executed. It was time for
them to leave… ”
http://thefederalist.com/2016/09/28/assyrian-christians-live-war-torn-limbo-praying-genocide/
TRANSITIONING FROM THE SAFE ZONES TO TOWNS, VILLAGES
AND RURAL AREAS:
Refugees and displaced peoples are returning to
their lands in Iraq. Iraq needs a secure and fully
operational SAFE ZONE initiative ASAP. Assyrian
Christians and other minorities need to see their
own people (locals), like the NPU, securing the
Nineveh Plains to build trust and enable return. It
is critical to provide necessary military and police
education, training and supplies (including arms) in
the Nineveh Plains region to the local inhabitants
to reestablish Law & Order and to secure refugees
and displaced people returning to their homes and
villages. The local military and police force should
fully represent the local people. This action will
enable the local inhabitants to build intelligence
networks with the NPU to monitor roaming ISIS
remnants, extremists, criminals and new emerging
threats.
THE NINEVAH PLAINS PEOPLE NEED TO BE RECOGNIZED AND
FULLY REPRESENTED IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
NINEVAH PLAINS PROVINCE:
H E Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi congratulates the
Chaldean Assyrian brothers on the occasion of the
Assyrian New Year. Media Office Of The Prime
Minister April
1, 2017.
“His excellency Prime Minister Dr. Haider Al-Abadi
congratulated the Assyrian Chaldean (Catholic)
brothers on
the occasion of the Assyrian Babylonian New Year (Akitu), stressing
the pride in the culture and intellectual diversity
of Mesopotamia, calling for the necessity for
preserving it…”
The government of Iraq (GoI) issued a mandate on
November 21, 2014 allowing the indigenous people of
the Nineveh Plains to begin the process of
establishing a province. As the “Consent Of The
Governed” is being established in the Nineveh
Plains, the Assyrian Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks
and other minorities will need proper representation
and given a direct voice in GoI decision making
process for SAFE ZONES, humanitarian efforts, safety
and security funding, and the general welfare
(inter-agency IoG appropriations) for the Nineveh
Plains.
IRAQI MINORITIES MOVE FORWARD WITH AUTOMOUS PLAN
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/03/rafedin-minorities-iraq-nineveh-plain-autonomy.html
The proposal is the most complete vision the
minorities have yet put forward as an alliance, with
the aim of extracting themselves from the
Arab-Kurdish struggle for their areas and to prevent
a repetition of the catastrophic killing and
displacement they suffered when the Islamic
State (IS) invaded Ninevah province and
raided the areas where they live.
The minorities have previously put
forward plans focused
specifically on setting up a province for the
minorities on the Ninevah plains. That province
would stretch across
areas disputed between Arabs and Kurds but that
are considered the homeland of several Iraqi
minorities: the Ninevah plains (home to several
minorities, particularly Christians and Shabak), Tal
Afar (majority Turkmens) and Sinjar (the main home
of the Yazidis).
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/03/rafedin-minorities-iraq-nineveh-plain-autonomy.html#ixzz4mKLCdMRA
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/03/rafedin-minorities-iraq-nineveh-plain-autonomy.html#ixzz4mKKwfUfN
Some Assyrian History
Arab Islamic Conquest (630–780)
Centuries of constant warfare between the Byzantine
Empire and Sassanid
Empire left both empires exhausted, depleted,
and battle-fatigued, which meant that when the Muslim Arabscame
to invade the region during the 600s from the Arabian
peninsula- The empires could do little to resist
it. Therefore, after the early Islamic conquests in
the seventh century, Assyria was dissolved as a
political entity, although the native population
still regarded the region as Assyria. Under Arab
rule, Mesopotamia as a whole underwent a gradual
process of Arabisation and Islamification,
and the region saw a large influx of non
indigenous Arabs, Kurds, Iranian,
and Turkic
peoples.
However, the indigenous Assyrian population
of northern Mesopotamia resisted this process,
retaining their language, religion, culture and
identity.
Under the Arab Islamic empires, the Christian
Assyrians were classed as dhimmis,
second-class citizens that had certain restrictions
imposed upon them. Assyrians were thus excluded from
specific duties and occupations reserved for
Muslims, did not enjoy the same or equal political
rights as Muslims, their word was not equal to that
of a Muslim in legal and civil matters without a
Muslim witness, they were subject to payment of a
special tax (jizyah)
and they were banned from spreading their religion
further in Muslim ruled lands. However, personal
matters such as marriage and divorce were governed
by the cultural laws of the Assyrians.[75][76]
For those reasons, and even during the Sassanian
period before Islamic rule, The Assyrian
Church of the East formed a church structure
that spread Nestorian
Christianity to as far away as China, in order
to proselytize away from Muslim ruled regions In
Iran and their homeland in Mesopotamia, with
evidence of their massive church structure being
the Nestorian
Stele, an artifact found in China which
documented over 100 years of Christian history in
China from 600–781 AD.[77] Assyrian
Christians maintained relations with fellow
Christians in Armenia and Georgia throughout
the Middle
Ages. In the 12th century AD, Assyrian priests
interceded on behalf of persecuted Arab Muslims in
Georgia.[78] The
Assyrian Church structure thrived during the period
of 600–1300, and is regarded as a golden age for
Assyrians.
Mongol Empire (1200–1300)
The first signs of trouble for the Assyrians started
in the 13th century, when the Mongols first invaded the
Near East after the fall
of Baghdad in 1258 to Hulagu
Khan.[79] Assyrians
at first did very well under Mongol rule, as the Shamanist Mongols
were sympathetic to them, with Assyrian priests
having traveled to Mongolia centuries before. The
Mongols in fact spent most of their time oppressing
Muslims and Jews, outlawing the practice of
circumcision and halal
butchery, as they found them repulsive and
violent.[80] Therefore,
as one of the only groups in the region looked at in
a good light, Assyrians were given special
privileges and powers, with Hülegü even appointing
an Assyrian
Christian[disambiguation
needed] governor to Erbil (Arbela),
and allowing the Syriac
Orthodox Church to build a church there.[81]

However, the Mongol rulers in the Near East
eventually converted to Islam.
Sustained persecutions of Christians throughout the
entirety of the Ilkhanate began
in earnest in 1295 under the rule of Oïrat amir Nauruz,
which affected the indigenous Assyrian Christians
greatly.[82]During
the reign of the Ilkhan Öljeitü,
the Assyrian Christian inhabitants of Erbil seized
control of the citadel and much of the city in
rebellion against the Muslims. In spring 1310, the
Mongol Malik (governor)
of the region attempted to seize it from them with
the help of the Kurds and
Arabs, but was defeated. After his defeat he decided
to siege the city. The Assyrians held out for three
months, but the citadel was at last taken by
Ilkhanate troops and Arab, Turkic and Kurdish
tribesmen on July 1, 1310. The defenders of the
citadel fought to the last man, and many of the
Assyrian inhabitants of the lower town were
subsequently massacred.[83][84]
Regardless of these hardships, the Assyrian people
remained numerically dominant in the north of
Mesopotamia as late as the 14th century AD, and the
city of Assur functioned
as their religious and cultural capital. However, in
the mid-14th century the Muslim Turk
ruler Tamurlaneconducted
a religiously motivated massacre of the indigenous Assyrian Christians,
and worked tirelessly to destroy the vast Assyrian
Church structure established throughout the Far
East, destroying the entire structure of the
church with the exception of the St
Thomas Christians of the Malabar
Coast in India,
whom number 10 million or so in modern times.[85] After
Timurs campaign, The Assyrian Cultural and religious
capital of Assur was
completely destroyed, thousands of Assyrians were
massacred, the vast church structure of the Assyrian
Church of the East was decimated, and the
Assyrian population was from that point on reduced
to a small minority living within Muslim dominated
lands.[86]
Breakup of the Assyrian Church (1500–1780)
Around 100 years after the massacres by Timur, a
religious schism known as the Schism
of 1552 occurred among the Assyrians of northern
Mesopotamia, when a large number of followers of
the Assyrian
Church of the East in Amid elected
a rival Patriarch named Shimun
VIII Yohannan Sulaqa after becoming dissatisfied
with the leadership of the Assyrian Church, at this
point based in Alqosh.
Due to a need for an ordination by a metropolitan
bishop, Sulaqa went into communion with the Roman
Catholic Church after at first failing to gain
acceptance within the Syriac
Orthodox Church. Rome named this new church The
Church of Assyria and Mosuland its first
leader Patriarch of the East Assyrians in
1553 AD.
Soon after coming back Sulaqa was assassinated by
supporters of the rival patriarch in Alqosh, but was
able to form a new church structure and line of
succession known as the Shimun Line prior to his
death. This group of Assyrians eventually broke off
ties with Rome, moved en masse to the Hakkari Mountains,
and returned to the Assyrian church they once
adhered to prior to the Schism of 1552, while still
operating independently from the original Assyrian
Church structure based in Alqosh.
A decade or so before the Shimun line broke off ties
with Rome, another faction within the Assyrian
Church entered into communion with Rome known as the
Josephite line, and upon the Shimun line leaving,
inherited the now vacant Church of Assyria and
Mosul', which was renamed the "Chaldean
Catholic Church" by The
Vatican in 1683. This is now believed to be due
to an error by the Roman Catholic Church which
already had a history of labelling eastern
Christians (including Cypriots)
as Chaldeans, but due to that error, some
of their followers became known as Chaldean
Catholics or Chaldo-Assyrians,
despite having absolutely no ethnic, historical,
linguistic, cultural or geographic connections
whatsoever to the by now long extinct Chaldean tribe
of south east Mesopotamia. However, these
appellations appear to have only emerged relatively
recently, as in the late 19th century, Hormuzd
Rassam, himself a member of the Chaldean
Catholic Church, states that church members were
using the ethnic term Assyrian and the theological
term Nestorian to describe themselves.[87][88]
Later on in the 1830s the original Assyrian
Church of the East structure in Alqosh combined
with the Catholic one, creating the modern Chaldean
Catholic Church structure, which is ironic
considering that the only remaining ethnic Assyrian
Church to practice the Assyrian
Church of the East denomination was the first
one to split from the Assyrian Church of the East
back in 1552. There was also another Nestorian
Denomination known as the Ancient
Church of the East, which split from the
Assyrian Church of the East due to reforms passed
under the rule of Shimun
XXIII Eshai in the 1960s, but with the election
of Gewargis
III in 2015 the churches had a reconciliation,
and reunited.
In addition to the Eastern Rite Churches, The Syriac
Orthodox Church also has a large number of
ethnically Assyrian Adherents, who are known
sometimes as Syriacs, the term 'Syriac'
being etymologically derived from 'Assyrian'. The
Syriac Orthodox Church has 5 million adherents
across the globe, but is based in Damascus. However,
since the 11th century it was based in the Saffron
Monastery of Tur
Abdin, and prior to that it was based in Antioch.
Like the Nestorian churches, schisms also occurred
within the Syriac Orthodox Church. In 1626 Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries
began to proselytize among the Syriac Orthodox
faithful at Aleppo,
forming a larger pro-catholic movement within the
Syriac Orthodox Church. So in 1662, when the Syriac
Orthodox Patriarchate had fallen vacant, the
Catholic party was able to elect one of its own, Andrew
Akijan as Patriarch of the Syriac Church. This
provoked a split in the community, and after
Akijan’s death in 1677 two opposing patriarchs were
elected, with one of those becoming the first
Patriarch of the Syriac
Catholic Church. This line of succession died
out quickly, however, but in 1782 with the election
of Michael
Jarweh as Patriarch the Ignatius line
has been the head of the Syriac Catholic Church
since then, and also has its base in Damascus.
Modern
history[edit]
Ottoman
Empire (1900–1928)[edit]

The burning of bodies of Christian
Assyrian women during the Assyrian
Genocide
After these splits, the Assyrians suffered a number
of religiously and ethnically motivated massacres
throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries,[89] such
as the Massacres
of Badr Khan which resulted in the massacre of
over 10,000 Assyrians in the 1840s,[90] culminating
in the large scale Hamidian
massacres of unarmed men, women and children by Turks and Kurdsin
the 1890s at the hands of the Ottoman
Empire and its associated (largely Kurdish and Arab)
militias, which greatly reduced their numbers,
particularly in southeastern Turkey where over
25,000 Assyrians were murdered.[91] The Adana
massacre of 1909 largely aimed at Armenian
Christians also accounted for the murder of some
1,500 Assyrians.[92]
The Assyrians suffered a further catastrophic series
of events during World
War I in the form of the religiously and
ethnically motivated Assyrian
Genocide at the hands of the Ottomans and
their Kurdish and
Arab allies from 1915 to 1918.[93][94][95][96] Some
sources claim that the highest number of Assyrians
killed during the period was 750,000, while a 1922
Assyrian assessment set it at 275,000. The Assyrian
Genocide ran largely in conjunction with the
similarly ethno-religiously motivated Armenian
Genocide, Greek
Genocide and Great
Famine of Mount Lebanon.
In reaction against Ottoman cruelty, the Assyrians
took up arms, and an Assyrian
war of independence was fought during World
War I which took place in what is today south
eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, north western Iran
and north eastern Syria. For a time, the Assyrians
fought successfully against overwhelming numbers,
scoring a number of victories against the Ottomans
and Kurds, and also hostile Arab and Iranian groups.
However, due to the collapse of the Russian
Empire—due to the Russian
Revolution—and the similar collapse of the Armenian
Defense, the Assyrians were left without allies.
As a result, The Assyrians were vastly outnumbered,
outgunned, surrounded, cut off, and without
supplies. The only option they had was to flee the
region into northwest Iran and fight their way, with
around 50,000 civilians in tow, to British train
lines going to Mandatory
Iraq. The sizable Assyrian presence in south
eastern Anatolia which had endured for over four
millennia was thus reduced to no more than 15,000 by
the end of World War I, and by 1924 many of those
who remained were forcibly expelled in a display of ethnic
cleansing by the Turkish government, with many
leaving and later founding villages in the Sapna and Nahla
valleys in the Dohuk
Governorate of Iraq.
In 1920 the Assyrian settlements in Mindan and Baquba were
attacked by Iraqi
Arabs, but the Assyrian tribesmen displayed
their military prowess by successfully defeating and
driving off the Arab forces.[97] The
Assyrians also sided with the British during the Iraqi
revolt against the British.
The Assyrian
Levies were founded by the British in
1922, with ancient Assyrian military rankings, such
as Rab-shakeh,
Rab-talia and Turtanu, being revived for the first
time in millennia for this force. The Assyrians were
prized by the British rulers for their fighting
qualities, loyalty, bravery and discipline, and were
used to help the British put down insurrections
among the Arabs, Kurds and Turcoman,
guard the borders with Iran and Turkey, and protect
British military installations. During the 1920s
Assyrian levies saw action in effectively defeating
Arab and Kurdish forces during anti-British
rebellions in Iraq.[97][98][99]
Simele Massacre and World War II (1930–1950)

Map of
Assyrian populated areas
After Iraq was granted independence by the British
in 1933, the Assyrians suffered the Simele
Massacre, where thousands of unarmed villagers
(men, women and children) were slaughtered by joint
Arab-Kurdish forces of the Iraqi Army. The massacres
of civilians followed a clash between armed Assyrian
tribesmen and the Iraqi army, where the Iraqi forces
suffered a defeat after trying to disarm the
Assyrians, whom they feared would attempt to secede
from Iraq. Armed Assyrian
Levies were prevented by the British from going
to the aid of these civilians, and the British
government then whitewashed the massacres at the League
of Nations.
Despite these betrayals, the Assyrians were allied
with the British during World
War II, with eleven Assyrian companies seeing
action in Palestine/Israel and
another four serving in Greece, Cyprus and Albania.
Assyrians played a major role in the victory over
Arab-Iraqi forces at the Battle
of Habbaniya and elsewhere in 1941, when the
Iraqi government decided to join World War II on the
side of Nazi
Germany. The British presence in Iraq lasted
until 1955, and Assyrian Levies remained attached to
British forces until this time, after which they
were disarmed and disbanded.
A further persecution of Assyrians took place in
the Soviet
Union in the late 1940s and early 1950s when
thousands of Assyrians settled in Georgia, Armenia
and southern Russia were forcibly deported from
their homes in the dead of night by Stalin without
warning or reason to Central
Asia, with most being relocated to Kazakhstan,
where a small minority still remain.[100]
Ba'athism (1966–2003)[edit]
The period from the 1940s through to 1963 was a
period of respite for the Assyrians in northern Iraq
and north east Syria. The regime of Iraqi President
Kassim in particular saw the Assyrians accepted into
mainstream society. Many urban Assyrians became
successful businessmen, a number of Assyrians moved
south to cities such as Baghdad, Basra and Nasiriyah to
enhance their economic prospects, others were well
represented in politics, the military, the arts and
entertainment, Assyrian towns, villages, farmsteads
and Assyrian quarters in major cities flourished
undisturbed, and Assyrians came to excel and be
over-represented in sports such as boxing, football,
athletics, wrestling and swimming.
However, in 1963, the Ba'ath
Party took power by force in Iraq, and came to
power in Syria the same year. The Baathists, though
secular, were Arab
nationalists, and set about attempting to Arabize the
many non-Arab peoples of Iraq and Syria, including
the Assyrians. This policy included refusing to
acknowledge the Assyrians as an ethnic group,
banning the publication of written material in
Eastern Aramaic, and banning its teaching in
schools, together with an attempt to Arabize the
ancient pre-Arab heritage of Mesopotamian
civilisation.
The policies of the Baathists have also long been
mirrored in Turkey, whose nationalist governments
have refused to acknowledge the Assyrians as an
ethnic group since the 1920s, and have attempted to Turkify the
Assyrians by calling them "Semitic Turks" and
forcing them to adopt Turkish names and language. In
Baathist Syria too, the Assyrian (and Syriac-Aramean)
Christians faced pressure to identify as "Arab
Christians". In Iran, Assyrians continued to enjoy
cultural, religious and ethnic rights, but due to
the Islamic
Revolution of 1979 their community has been
diminished.
In the aftermath of the Iraq
War of 2003, Assyrians became the targets of
Islamist terrorist attacks and intimidation from
both Sunni and Shia groups, as well as criminal
kidnapping organisations; forcing many in southern
and central Iraq to relocate to safer Assyrian
regions in the north of the country or north east
Syria.
Syrian Civil War (2012–present)
In recent years, Assyrians in northern Iraq and
north east Syria have become the target of attacks
amounting to genocide by
Islamist militants like ISIL and Nusra
Front. In 2014, ISIL attacked Assyrian towns and
villages in the Assyrian
homelands of northern Iraq and north east Syria,
and Assyrians forced from their homes in cities such
as Mosul had their houses and possessions stolen,
both by ISIL and also by their own former Arab
Muslim neighbours.[102]Assyrian Bronze
Age and Iron
Age monuments and archaeological sites, as well
as numerous Assyrian churches and monasteries,[102] have
been systematically vandalised and destroyed by ISIL.
These include the ruins of Nineveh, Kalhu (Nimrud, Assur, Dur-Sharrukin and Hatra).[103][104] ISIL
destroyed a 3,000 year-old Ziggurat. ISIL destroyed
Virgin Mary Church, in 2015 St. Markourkas Church
was destroyed and the cemetery was bulldozed. [105]
Assyrians in both Iraq and Syria [106][107][108] have
responded by forming armed Assyrian militias to
defend their territories,[109] and
despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned have
had success in driving ISIL from Assyrian towns and
villages, and defending others from attack.[110][111] Armed
Assyrian militias have also fought ISIL alongside
armed groups of Kurds, Turcoman, Yezidis,
Syriac-Aramean Christians, Shabaks, Armenian
Christians, Kawilya, Mandeans, Circassians and Shia
Muslim Arabs and Iranians. “Dewkh Nawsha”,
translates to “the ones who sacrifiace”. The group
was formed days after ISIL took over Mosul. The
militia is made up of volunteers, who come from all
over the Nineveh plain. Dewkh Nawsha is supported
by Assyrian Patriotic Party and are led by Wilson
Khammu[105] It
is estimated that nearly 60 percent of Iraqi
Assyrians have fled. Assyrians who have fled have
ended up all over the world. 2009 U.S Census Bureau
survey, reported that roughly 100,000 have relocated
to the United States.[112]